Among The Stars
by ladyoftheknightley
Summary: [The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters] Hogwarts is a tough place for a seventh year Slytherin who doesn't really care one way or another about the outcome of the war. For the Points & Prompts challenge.


_The world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters – Sirius Black_

It's hard to be a Slytherin this year at school because the other houses assume that you're all Carrow-minions and really, you have to kind of act like one because there's a clique of Slytherin students who _are_, and you're kind of worried about what might happen to you if they find out that actually, you don't care either way about blood purity.

It's not some moral stance—you're not one for shouting from the rooftops about equal rights for Muggleborns or any of that nonsense—you just honestly don't care. Everyone bleeds the same colour in the end, so what's the point? And you think that the whole Dumbledore's Army thing is a load of pretentious rubbish, because who wants to risk so much for a bit of graffiti and some news about Harry Potter (as though _he's_ going to save us all), but you're certainly not going to join in the torture of your classmates for their foolishness.

Only you kind of have to pretend to, because they all hate you anyway, and if your housemates start hating you too, you'll have no friends left at all. So you point your wand and say '_Crucio_', but nothing happens and the others quickly learn to fake screaming agony and it's all okay, sort of, but you live in terror of the day the Carrows'll find out and it just makes you so anxious about everything.

Late at night, you write the anxiety all over your arms with a quill, because ink washes away and leaves no scars and you're afraid that if you do it with a knife, someone might see the bloodstains. You're not suicidal, but you want it all to end—sort of. You want to float above them all, look down on everything from a bed of stars and watch them as they scurry like ants, because it's not important, not really. Who cares who your parents are? You never even knew your father, and you know your mother much less. You're Pure enough that you're accepted by the world, but not enough that you're respected. You fake curses, but you're not brave enough to stand up like one or two others in Salazar's house who say 'enough' and lose _everything_.

You try to care, but you just can't. So it would be much better if the whole thing ended, but it doesn't. More's the pity.

* * *

You know she's using you to try to make him jealous, and you know it won't work and really, you don't even_ like_ her, but you let her carry on doing what she's doing. He doesn't even care; too busy worrying about what the Dark Lord wants next and you don't have to be a Legillimens to know _that_.

He's hardly in school at all, flitting between there and wherever it is the Death Eaters go (and oh, how she wishes she knew; you can read her like a book) but when he is in school, that's when you have to watch out. She acts with you like she has done with him since that Yule Ball—simpering and cloying and fussing around you in public, that dreadful flirting that makes you want to scream but she makes it up to you later. You don't want her in ways she can't even begin to imagine, but you let her because hands are hands and lips are lips and at the end of the day human bodies are bound to respond regardless.

She figures out you're not casting the torture curse correctly, but takes pity on you, thinking you're embarrassed about your lack of spellcasting prowess. "It's okay," she purrs. "I'll show you. Watch and learn." She tortures Seamus for hours and you have to stand and watch as his glorious body is twisted into all sorts of gruesome shapes, writhing in pain on the floor and you wish it would stop even more than he does. That night, you carve the words into your arms with your quill so hard you bleed, which is almost ironic.

* * *

It's funny how normal, everyday things carry on even though Hogwarts is being run by Death Eaters and who knows what else is going on outside the school. Hogsmeade trips are still carry on, and Pansy makes you take her right before Christmas (because she's heard a rumour that Draco is going to be there). He _is_ there, chatting to someone in the Hog's Head and looking in way over his head. It's no surprise when he yells at Pansy, telling her to get out of his life, and somehow you're the one picking up the pieces, soothing her even though really you don't give a damn about her supposedly broken heart. She'll survive, you think—

—-but you probably won't, not when you look out of the window of the almost-deserted pub and see _him_ dancing with the blonde haired Gryffindor bimbo like they're fourteen and at the Yule Ball again. Snow falls on the two of them, but they're laughing and twirling around and Merlin knows how they got permission to come here, when they're the two who the Carrows love to torture the most. Longbottom and Weaslette have their blood status which protects them; they're both half-bloods, like you are.

(They probably snuck out. Despite all the bitterness, you find a place inside your heart to worry about him getting into trouble and being _crucioed_ once again. You hope she is, though.)

Pansy sees you laughing and understands but misunderstands, telling you that Lavender Brown is a dirty skank and puts it about for everyone anyway and you can do so much better than her. It's the thought that counts, though, and she doesn't throw a hissy fit like you expected and you're so surprised by her niceness that you buy her an entire box of Honeydukes' finest when you enter the shop. You're not sure which of you is the most surprised by your unexpected kindness.

She repays you by ditching you for Theo Nott, which anyone else might think is a mean thing to do, but it's a relief for you to not have to go on pretending. Sometimes, you think she knows—_knowa_ knows—when you catch her staring at you with a shrewd look on her face after you've been studiously avoiding watching him get tortured by the Carrows. But if she does figure it out, she never says anything which is both astonishing and gratifying. You make a mental note to buy her more chocolates—but then the owner of Honeydukes is attacked and the shop closes and Hogsmeade trips are cancelled even for the Slytherins and it's all just an even bigger mess.

* * *

The year drags on (and on and on).

You become effectively nocturnal—none of the teachers really notice you're no longer going to classes (you're a Slytherin, after all. What's the worst that could happen to you?) and you find a strange sort of comfort in the distance of the stars. Everything else continues as it was—kind of simmering, but not yet boiling over.

Then, of course, it happens. You're not surprised—it's always been obvious that something would happen with Potter—and you leave with the rest of the Slytherins because that is what is expected. It's not like you have any sort of urge to stay with the rest of them (well, you do, but not for altruistic reasons). Later, after the reprieve but before the battle is over, some other members of your house go back to help fight the Death Eaters. Others stay crammed into the Hogs Head pub and openly admit to hoping that Potter loses, that the Dark Lord reigns supreme; others still stay and soothe the younger students of _all_ houses.

You stay but do none of those things. You find a quill someone's dropped on the floor, pick it up and start doodling. On the underside of your left wrist, you write his name. No one pays you any attention.

You watch the stars all night, imagining what could be happening up at the castle. There are some things you don't let yourself imagine—or at least, you try not to. When the last stars fade, word comes that it's over, that Voldemort's dead. You join in neither the celebrations nor the fear of the Purebloods, but head on up to the castle anyway because you _need_ to find out what's happened to him.

You find out fairly quickly that he's still alive—you see him in the Great Hall, bent over _her_ body. For one wild moment you think she's dead, too, but she's not. You overhear him saying things like "you're going to be alright" and "we'll get you to St Mungo's and you'll be just fine" and "don't you worry now, I'll stay here as long as you'd like" and you feel sick to your stomach (and not just at the sight of her face, now torn to pieces).

If there was any justice in the world, he would finally notice you, but he doesn't (of course).

Some time later (hours? Minutes? Days? Does anyone even care at this point?) she is taken away to the hospital and _he_ is led away by his friends, and that's all you see of him. There should be more than this, an ending that's properly an ending, one way or another. But instead, there's just this anti-climactic emptiness—he's gone, and he doesn't care about you, and you've got to carry on knowing that.

You stumble your way towards the empty Slytherin dormitories and fall into a restless sleep, woken again the following night. You wander about underneath the stars, coming to rest underneath Gryffindor Tower—the one Tower still remaining—where you presume he is staying.

"Enough now, Blaise," you tell yourself. "Enough."

And you can almost believe it.

* * *

_The ending is semi-borrowed from Love Actually, the characters are wholly borrowed from JKR. Written for the Points and Prompts competition. Hope you enjoyed—do let me know what you thought in reviews :)_


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